Existing diagnostic imaging techniques of breast cancer include X-ray mammography, computer tomography (CT), ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and nuclear imaging. FIG. 1 illustrates a table summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of each existing diagnostic imaging process or technique. These conventional techniques may be limited by poor resolution, use of harmful ionizing radiation, lack of portability, and/or expensive instrumentation.
Diffuse optical imaging (DOI) (also known as Near-infrared (NIR) optical imaging) is an emerging non-invasive technology that may be applied towards deep tissue imaging, with one application being breast cancer diagnostics However, the existing NIR optical imaging systems may be limited in a number of ways. For example, existing NIR imaging apparatus may be large and bulky systems, and thus, not generally portable. NIR imaging apparatus may also cause patient discomfort because the apparatus may require a patient to be placed in certain positions or may require compression of patient tissue. Moreover, conventional NIR imaging apparatus and methods may be limited to imaging only fixed volumes or certain shapes of breast tissue.
In recent years, hand-held probe based optical imaging systems have been developed for clinical applications. These hand-held probe based systems represent an alternative to the conventional bulky optical imaging systems. However, the available hand-held optical imagers employ contact imaging that is impractical for many applications (e.g., surgical settings, imaging of open wounds, etc.), require multiple probes, and/or are incapable of performing both trans-illumination and reflective imaging. In part because many of the